May 20 HOW TO PRAY

Have you ever wondered if your prayers have to be well worded and well thought out in order to be valid? Have you ever been intimidated to hear the spoken prayer of another believer and worried you're doing it all wrong or just not as well? Have you ever just sat with God and not known what in the world to say? Me too.

I've been thinking about this quote lately:

"Your sigh is able to move the heart of Jehovah;your whisper can incline His ear to you;your prayer can stay His hand;your faith can move His arm."-Alistair Begg

How radical that even our broken breathless sighs will move the heart of God. They don't have to be eloquent. They don't have to be threaded with memorized verses. God simply wants us to come and fellowship with Him. I've heard it said that prayer is more for us than it is for God. It changes us. It deepens our faith and it matures us as believers. These past few weeks I'm finding there is comfort in knowing those unscripted little sighs are heard in the throne room. Those faint whimpers that may not even have actual words - they count.

Just as we, as mothers, hear every breath, and sigh, and whimper of our babies at night, so our Father hears ours as well. Just as we, as mothers, don't expect our children to know the perfect words to say when expressing what's on their hearts, so our Father feels the same way. Prayer can be expressed in many forms. But God knows our hearts.

If you're feeling intimidated to pray, just remember how much you love it when one of your children wants to tell you something that's on their minds. You don't care if they stumble over their words. You understand if it takes them a long time to arrive at the main point of the story. You just love the conversation and the chance to hear their struggles, and fears, and goals. In the same way, approach God. Even whimpers and sighs incline His ear to you.

Bri Carlisle is a wife and mother-of-two and and doesn't have an eloquently worded prayer life. She would love to connect with you on her personal blog, Woven, or over at her favorite social media spot - Instagram.